


Hell Broke Luce

by eyesofshinigami



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Author's notes matter, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s02e09 Something Borrowed, Hellsing references, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Rough Sex, SLA Industries references, Slow Build, War, Warhammer 40K references, eventually, more tags to come, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:14:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28039776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyesofshinigami/pseuds/eyesofshinigami
Summary: Set in the Modern/Near-Apocalypse Continent, the Last Wolf is a member of the clandestine Special Forces unit known as the Witchers. The story follows the Last Wolf from a darker perspective, which an emphasis on trauma, psychosis, mania, and a little friendly help from Jaskier as a priest. Dark. Blunt. Real. Social commentary sprinkled in as demanded by author's salt level. Eventual Geralt/Jaskier.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Kudos: 5





	Hell Broke Luce

**Author's Note:**

> This is a writing project that my husband is undertaking, but has no interest in getting an AO3, so he's borrowing mine. XD Any and all comments and appreciation will be passed to him, so enjoy!
> 
> Title taken from "Hell Broke Luce" by Tom Waits. It fits the tone of the story very well, I suggest giving it a listen.
> 
> Author’s Note: Modern radio parlance is structured into a “YOU this is ME, MESSAGE” format. #-6 annotates a commander. #-6-Romeo annotates the commander’s junior enlisted radioman who acts as the commander’s secretary. #-6-Actual annotates that it is the commander himself speaking. JAG stands for the Army’s Judge Advocate General corps, the legal body which determines a strike’s legality. An ‘operator’ is a loose industry term that refers to individuals highly tactically capable; a warrior’s warrior, with reputation.

He rests in the dark as comfortably as a basilisk inside a swan’s egg, the blackness at the edge of the village clothing him completely. Calloused, scarred fingertips rise to the nub of electronics riding over his Adam’s apple and he cues the whispermike to say, 

“Castle-Six-Actual, this is Wolf-Six.”  
“Wolf-Six, this is Castle-Six-Romeo, provide status report.”  
“Fuck you, Romeo. Put Actual on.”

There is a delay, but it is nothing to him as his hands run through the old, familiar rituals of check, chamber, clear, roll the round, and repeat. The only company a Witcher is suitable for is his own, and the last Wolf most of all. 

“Wolf-Six, this is Castle-Six-Actual, provide status report.”

He restrains his hand from crushing the little hub of separating electrons -- he needs this -- and lets that violence bleed into his voice as he says again,

“Fuck you, Actual. You know why I am calling -- say the words.”

The delay is longer this time and he takes the small prisoner’s pleasure out of inflicting rage on his tormentors. They will say the words. They always do. 

“Wolf-Six, this is Castle-Six-Actual. JAG certifies all entities on-site are lawful targets, say again, all entities on-site are lawful targets. Operation WILD HUNT is a GO. Release Control Art Restriction to Level 2. Fulfill the Contract, in the Emperor’s na--”

There is more to the invocation but it’s lost, as it always is, in the sudden feeling of blood-pounding, soul-crushing _freedom_. He erupts from his nest among the shadows, a basilisk grown, and he is loosed upon the village in a manner as unforgiving and ruthless as a plague-bearing cough on a warm summer wind. 

He is soon among them and he takes them all, as the Contract demands. 

\---

It has always amused him, the endless amount of metrics that the Ministry of Defense keeps track of in an attempt to assess the status of the war effort. Rounds expended to confirmed kill, pounds of ordnance dropped per objective successfully cleansed, every single training dollar carefully tracked, calculated, and weighed against its projected output on the battlefield. Any operator could have saved the MOD’s beancounters literal years of work by proposing a simpler statistic -- the median age of the force fighting its war. Warfighting is a lot like fucking in that the first time you do it, it is the most intense thing you have ever done, you aren’t sure what’s happening to you much less your teammates, and everything is wet. Just like fucking, it takes a long time to get good at warfighting. Not like fucking, when people are bad at war, they fucking die and don’t get the chance to get any better, so in wars that are losing, the median age of the force goes down and down and down as the MOD attempts, yet again, to solve every problem with a human tide. 

Given the way this most recent war was going, the last Wolf is not surprised when the priest sitting across the sterilized, blessed table from him is in his early twenties. 

When he had been just another Pure Strain Human operator, they had used psychologists after his wartime rotations to ensure it was “safe” to integrate him back into the rest of humanity. After his induction into the ranks of the Witchers, it had been nothing but a sequential, gold-and-scarlet procession of members of the Ecclesiarchy. He settles back into the stainless steel chair, suddenly tired, and waits for the young priest to get through the administrative biographical annotations in his warsteel-bound tome:

“In the name of the Holy Emperor, to whom we pray honors us with his infinite wisdom and mercy, I am Confessor Pankratz and this is the 12th of August of the year 4256 by the Emperor’s Reckoning. I am here to take the classified confession of Wolf-6, of whom all documents, including this document, are classified Top Secret // GREEN GRASSES / NOFORN / ORCON // REL ECCS/ASTR ONLY.” 

The introductory litany is always the same and the Wolf can feel himself already slipping into a loose, detached meditative state as he prepares to answer the standard battery of questions. 

This is suddenly interrupted by the muted ‘whumph!’ of the Confessor closing the confessional and, in a starkly bright, pleasant tone telling him, “Well thank the Emperor that’s over with, let’s get to the good stuff. How are you doing, Wolf-6?” 

After centuries of war, the Wolf is a creature of muted outward reactions that bely the eternally burning engine of his mind; even still, this departure from the Ecclesiarchy’s inviolable, sacrosanct bureaucracy startles him and draws out a short, sharp blink. He shifts in his chair as he asks, gravelled voice worn and tired, “Confessor Pankratz, what are you doing?” 

The young, blue-eyed man before him waves a pristinely gloved hand at the thick tome as he leans forwards, conspiratory now beneath the industrially bright glare of the overhead lights, “I checked your case file and you have answered the standard battery of questions with, and I would never lie about something like this, literally the exact same, word-for-word answers for the past forty-seven years.” Pankratz’s shoulders jounce once beneath the weight of his robes as he continues on, an unflappable cheeriness to the youth’s words, “So I already completed the standard form with your stock answers and thought we would try out something different. And please, just between us” -- he smiles then, fox-sly and amused as those blue eyes tick briefly to the observation room’s cameras -- “call me Julian.”

People often miscast operators, thinking that they are simple, or slow, or that their physical prowess somehow takes away from their mental acuity, as if they could somehow have survived multiple iterations of close-range combat on dense muscle alone. The infernal engine of the Wolf’s mind roars, ignition lit by the fumes of curiosity as he considers Confessor Pankratz. Like stepping stones in the dark, each bit of analysis rises out of that deep pool to present the Wolf with:

1\. He is young. Too young to have fucked up and been sent to the Ecclesiarchy, which means he chose it as a novice. Curious. Insufficient data to fully consider the motivations supporting said choice.  
2\. He is trying ‘something new.’ The Ecclesiarchy considers ‘new things’ only slightly less blasphemous than actually fucking corpses, which means he is protected, and thoroughly. He must be -- ahh, there it is. He is a Scion of one of the Highborn Houses. A Scion who chose to be a Confessor. Curious. Only possible conclusion is that he is in moderate disfavor.  
3\. He read my casefile in advance. That amount of research implies a high-confidence assessment that he believes either he will be assigned as my Confessor of Record or he believes there is something he can get from me. Most likely course of action is both; he seeks advancement in the ranks of the Ecclesiarchy through making some sort of “progress” with me. 

The Wolf smiles then, his arms uncrossing and his legs shifting to bring him closer to the table, to the field of battle. If he wishes an engagement with a Witcher, then he will earn the fate all other challengers and usurpers have garnered. A pinprick of caution holds him, scorpion to pinboard, long enough to caution him that, even for him, damaging a uniformed Confessor in the line of his duties will not be easily forgiven. The blood can wait, only the words for now. His smile widens further as he asks, 

“What is it you wish to know, Julian?”

There is a wariness, a sudden caution that takes the younger man’s elfen features at the Wolf’s apparent complacency and complicitness; he hadn’t expected such easy agreement. Good, the Wolf’s mind guides him, good. Keep him off pace. 

“Well, uh… Given that the last forty-seven years of spiritual and psychological assessment are literally worthless, we have… Well, my scarred and frankly terrifying new friend, we have a lot to discuss.” Those pure-white, gloved hands make a loose circular gesture as he says, “Let’s start with where you are now -- trying to get home from the sandbox after another combat rotation. Excited to finally be back?” 

Liquidity of thought is sometimes as much of a curse as it is a blessing; to operate at breakneck speeds implies the obvious loss of guided control; reacting on instinct by definition means reacting without thought; and the red-lit corridors of the Wolf’s mind betray him here. 

‘Home’ calls his mind to his rented storage unit in one of the megacity’s infamous, anonymous, unanimous hives. He’s never home long enough to make use of a real living space and makes his den in that self-same storage unit until more men need made into corpses. The storage unit itself is stocked only with varying iterations of his tactical kit and his weapons maintenance tools. It is a sterile and painful thought. There is no freedom in being home. 

‘The sandbox’ cues an actual, physical snort out of him. No one fucking calls it that, but he gets the feeling that Confessor Pankratz somehow knows and said it with just the right amount of derision and mockery that the Wolf can appreciate. 

‘Combat rotation’ causes a single, yearning, out of rhythm heartbeat to pulse from him, his sympathetic nerves getting horny thinking about murder murder murder. He closes his eyes a moment, the gesture disguised in an unnecessary blink, to enjoy the collage of red memories that cascade through his mind. Blood drips thick from both his elbows as he holds the last ‘enemy combatant’ over his head, enjoying the man’s screaming; he rips the target in half, letting the viscera consecrate him just as sweetly as he fucking needs. He smiles and can feel his breathing rate kick up higher than he technically needs; he lets the overindulgence pass. That was a good night and deserves honoring. 

‘Being back’ reminds him that, yet again, he will be reintegrating back into the civilian populace. The fucked up pageantry of modern society, with all of its useless ritualism, false patriotism, and the deadpan, apathetic adoration from the masses to the military all rise, noonwraith-bright in their intensity, into his soul. The smile that was so full of blood and fire chars, hollows on his face as he answers the priest, 

“Yes. So excited. Nothing makes me happier than serving my country and protecting my fellow citizens.”

\----

**Author's Note:**

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